We Are All Accountable By Timothy V. Gatto

Enough is enough. This nation has gone so far beyond the rule of law and reason that it is almost impossible to know where to start to bring in order to right all of the terrible wrongs we have perpetrated in the last fifty years. We have seen the American military machine wreck havoc in Iraq and Afghanistan. We not only occupied Iraq, but we have poisoned the soil and made the place uninhabitable because of our use of depleted uranium in our munitions. We can deny that depleted uranium is harmless, but the facts coming in about the deformed babies being born in Iraq says otherwise. We must all come to the conclusion that not only was the invasion of Iraq a crime against humanity, but turning Iraq, Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia into a radioactive wasteland are even larger crimes against humanity.

We must hold not only the government of this country accountable, but the facts are that knowing what we know now, we are all accountable. You may ask where I am getting my information from. Let me share my sources with you. When you click these links, please understand that some of these sources show very explicit photographs of the effects of depleted uranium on newborns. These pictures are disturbing, but no less disturbing than turning a blind eye to what we have done to these innocents in the name of “liberating” these people.

I can go on and fill up page after page of these crimes against the most vulnerable segment of any society, the children, but I won’t. To find other examples, just type in “Depleted Uranium Birth Defects” into any search engine. See for yourself what inhumanity this nation is capable of.

I’m sure that there will be critics of this article that will claim that these links I have provided offer “no real proof” that DU is the cause of these birth defects. Let them claim what they will. I understand that it is hard to comprehend that the United States is capable of war crimes of this magnitude. It is human nature to deny that our nation could be a party to such horrendous actions against other human beings.

This is just part of what our nation is involved in. We have gone way over the line in many aspects of our “foreign policy”. We have gone so far as to use our space program to enhance our military machine. The United States can claim that we dominate the world when it comes to using space as a military platform. We publicly claim that space exploration and our space program and those space programs of other nations should be used to advance human understanding and only be used for “peaceful purposes”, but that is just a ruse. We own space militarily.

Is there anything that the United States won’t do to further our global ambitions? I ask myself that question a lot. We seem to be a country that suffers from multiple personalities. We hear our silver-tongued President call for a dialogue of peace with the nations of the world while the other United States is still performing renditions and sending “suspected terrorists” to secret CIA interrogation sites.

We have declared war against Islam, demonizing an entire religion and culture that currently has the misfortune to live on 70% of the world’s oil reserves. We have demonized Hugo Chavez, a man that has done more for the poor people of his country than any other leader has done in Venezuela that came before him. We actively engaged in supporting a coup against him that was engineered by the affluent sector of the country and was supported by radio and TV stations owned by them. Now, eight years later, he shuts down a few of them for supporting that coup attempt and calling for his assassination and we demonize him. Most people in the United States see him as a dictator because of our propaganda against him. It’s understandable when you consider that his country sits on oil reserves that rival Saudi Arabia’s.

The media in this country is doing every citizen in this nation a grave disservice by not reporting what is really happening in the world. The media reports on celebrities, sports and the political discourse that is meant to keep the American people from seeing the truth. They keep us divided by reporting on issues like gay marriage and abortion and a health care program that seems to only benefit the health care insurance companies. They try to divide us with labels; right, left, liberal, conservative, republican and democrat. The political reporting only concentrates on the two corporate-controlled political parties that really don’t represent anything but keeping the status quo. Reporting on world news in detail is a thing of the past. We may hear about another country if they get hit by an earthquake for a week or so and then coverage disappears.

We are losing our civil liberties on a daily basis. The government has the power to tap your phone and read your e-mails and look into your computer without a warrant. Demonstrators can only demonstrate in “First Amendment zones”, areas fenced off from the public. The government can arrest you without a warrant and hold you indefinitely without access to a lawyer or family by designating you a “terrorist”. A terrorist is anyone they say is a terrorist.

The people are starting to slowly understand. We have the tea party movement. They might be confused and wrong on most things, but they know something is wrong. The left, the real left, is becoming more vocal. Most people in America are sensing that they are living in a police state. Every day the police are looking more and more like military units.

The President has the power to send troops to fight anywhere on Earth without the consent of Congress. It is ‘unpatriotic” to vote against war funding because it appears that you “don’t support the troops”. Meanwhile the military is taking in gang members and felons to keep the ranks filled. When they come home physically and mentally scarred from constant back to back combat tours, getting proper treatment and rehabilitation is a crap shoot. The VA just doesn’t get the funding it needs.

I could keep writing all day. I’ll just conclude by saying that the things I’ve mentioned just scratch the surface of what is going on. Yesterday Vice President Biden was in Israel to promote peace talks with the Palestinians and Israel announced that they were building a new 1600 unit “settlement” in occupied East Jerusalem in violation of the peace accords. A slap in America’s face after we condemned the Goldstone report that accused Israel of War crimes when they invaded occupied Gaza, a city of 1.5 million with a median age of 14 years old and killed over 1500 people, mostly women and children.

Can things get much worse? In a word…yes. We can lose the rights we have left. We can keep pushing the Chinese and the Russians by expanding NATO and continuing to build missile sites on their borders until they finally can’t take it anymore. We can keep threatening Iran because it is building a nuclear reactor, something that 26 other nations have already done. Even though Iran has signed the non-proliferation treaty that allows it to build nuclear reactors for domestic power and authorizes them to enrich uranium to 20% somehow we still find the temerity to threaten them even though Israel announced last week that it is building its own reactor last week. We still turn a blind eye to Israel’s “secret” 300-t0 800 nuclear warheads.

All would take would be for Nazi-controlled Israel to launch a nuclear strike on Iran for that situation to spiral out of control until Russia or China shots off some of their own nuclear warheads towards Israel to spark World War IV. Then all of our future children will look like the poor children that I started this article with. Think about it.

If people so cherish the idea of representative democracy then indeed the people are the government, and are therefore ultimately accountable for the acts of the representatives they elect.

The problem with representative democracies is public apathy, which is one thing where domestic policy is concerned.

War-crimes exponentially escalate the obligation of public participation in policy. In such a circumstance, if the people fail to dissent, then the people are not only accountable, they are complicit co-conspirators.

cameron , i actually know what he is getting at in using the word ALL. i mean we must question if any of us is innocent in matters that pertain to life and death issues. the All does not let off the hook , those who commited such atrocitys directly , it just widens the lense to consider that any silence at all on your part is complicity with evil .

You lost me in the second paragraph with the ‘we are all accountable’. We are NOT all accountable, a word that you use as synonymous with ‘responsible.’ When everyone is responsible no one is responsible. You let our outlaw political system off the hook by insisting that the criminal acts are shared by all.

We let the American Empire happen. We are ALL complicit. Have you ever sat quietly while a family member blesses our troops at a Thanksgiving meal? Did you vote for “the lessor of two evils”? Do you pay your taxes? Do you ever wonder where the decent Germans were when Hitler operated the death camps? Do you honestly believe Obama doesn’t understand the truth? We all know the truth. If we all behaved like we know the truth I don’t believe this would be happening. Everyone is reponsible. In fact, not just Americans either. This doesn’t mean that no one is responsible, it just means that we are all responsible. Include me in that too. If we had the balls we would have had a revolution by now. What will it take to make all of us stop this insanity? I guess the only way we will stop this madness is when we have nothing to lose. They know this and will let us keep just enough of our “freedom” and just enough of the wealth to keep us compliant. If they weren’t afraid of us they would have taken everything from us long ago.

The Golden Rule

“That which is hateful to you do not do to another ... the rest (of the Torah) is all commentary, now go study.” - Rabbi Hillel

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

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